LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

The guys keep on impressing me. After we agreed on “hello my baby” as the apt song for the performance in Evita se perron, they came on stage in front of the country’s foremost artists and performed one of Ladysmith’s songs called “Long walk to freedom”.
It has been a night of excitement and joy as the Khayelitsha United mambazo group is singing their way into the darling voorkamerfest.
Apparently voorkamerfest is a dutch concept, it basicly means the local community open up their homes for performers and audiences to use as venues.
We are hosted at George and Norma’s place in station street in Darling. Their massive stoep in front of the house became the performance area and soon happy audiences were dancing their way to their transport after the performances.

On the way here we picked up an Ubuntu Bamadoda banner and as soon as we arrived we strapped it to the minibus we are using. Everywhere we go everyone can see:
“Ubuntu Bamadoda, there is a boy watching you”

I still feel sad that Khayelitsha United Mambazo missed out on the mentorship camp, as it is so great to hang out with the guys. Maybe we can make a plan and arrange something.

For now the darling voorkamerfest is an amazing experience. Tonight we had a show where all the performers at the fest did a short clip of their show, it was a powerful, funny, moving and amazing two hours.

Although I know I might be biased, I think the loudest applause was for a little isicathamiya group from Khayelitsha. The perron is a venue that is unashamedly “BOER”! With Pieter Dirk Uys’s typical style he had collected hundreds of examples of all kinds of mathoms. Letters from Pik and PW, Mandela and Mangosuthu adorns the walls in the museum and the stage is surrounded by artwork depicting some famous victories of the boers.

Tonight the guys decided to sing : “Long walk to freedom”

No more hey you boy take this do this go there go here
No NO No
No more white boss saying do this well done you did a beautiful job boy

You go guys. You go.

It is almost one AM now and bongani is going to sleep.